Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments

Is keeping a secret from a spouse always an act of infidelity? And what cost does such a secret exact on a family?

The Ryries have suffered a loss: the death of a baby just fifty-seven hours after his birth. Without words to express their grief, the parents, John and Ricky, try to return to their previous lives. Struggling to regain a semblance of normalcy for themselves and for their two older children, they find themselves pretending not only that little has changed, but that their marriage, their family, have always been intact, that the loss of a child had no lasting impact. Yet in the aftermath, long-suppressed uncertainties about their relationship come roiling to the surface. A dreadful secret emerges with reverberations that reach far into their past and threaten their future.

The couples children, ten-year-old Biscuit and thirteen-year-old Paul, responding to the unnamed tensions around them, begin to act out in exquisitelyperhaps courageouslyidiosyncratic ways. But as the four family members scatter into private, isolating grief, an unexpected visitor arrives, and they all find themselves growing more alert to the sadness and burdens of othersto the grief that is part of every human life but that also carries within it the power to draw us together.

Moving, psychologically acute, and gorgeously written, The Grief of Others asks how we balance personal autonomy with the intimacy of relationships, how we balance private decisions with the obligations of belonging to a family, and how we take measure of our own sorrows in a world rife with suffering. This novel shows how one family, by finally allowing itself to experience the shared quality of grief, is able to rekindle tenderness and hope and are able to overcome their grief.

Review

"Cohen creates gorgeous, uncommon descriptions that sound like grace notes on her pages. . . . Theres pain in reading this book, but theres another thread running through it, too, gleaming with all the vibrancy of Cohens prose: hope."

Review

"Leah Hager Cohen is one of our foremost chroniclers of the mundane complexities, nuanced tragedies and unexpected tendernesses of human connection. . . . For all its deep-seated sorrows, this is a hopeful book, a series of striking vignettes illuminating the humanity of these fully realized characters."

Review

"In this subtle portrait of family life she shows the maddening arithmetic of marriage, the useless attempts to balance the equation. As Ricky and Johns kids start to come unglued themselves, we see how the grief of others is contagious. . . . Ms. Cohens painstaking excavation pays off, especially as Ricky and John decide to rebuild."

Review

"Part of the novels pathos lies in its ability to offer its characters a level of perceptive acuity and sympathetic attention they cannot offer one another ... The books brilliance lies in moments like this one, these shards of devastating insight. Cohens empathy is sure-footed and seemingly boundless; her writing gifts its characters with glints of ordinary human radiance. It is the possibility of this glinting that ultimately becomes Cohens most powerful gift to us, her readers, as well."

Review

"Cohens (House Lights) stunning writing and ruthless, beautiful magnification of soul-crushing sorrow that threatens the Ryries day-to- day family life mesmerizes, wounds, and possibly even heals her readers. Her courageous novel (she knows of what she writes) is to be savored."

Review

"The death of a newborn triggers the slow collapse of the Ryrie clan in Hager Cohens richly layered new novel. . . . Affecting."

Review

"With this incredibly moving commentary, Cohen has secured a place in the lineup of todays great writers."

Review

"With gorgeous prose, Cohen skillfully takes us from past to present and back again as she explores the ramifications of family loss, grief and longing."

Review

"Leah Hager Cohens new novel is a perceptive, absorbing drama about the complex bonds of the modern American family and the treacherous paradox of the way we live now. Somehow, the more open and flexible we try to become as spouses and parents, the more emotional risks we take-and the more secrets we keep. I love how deeply Cohen delves into the hearts of all her characters, bringing them fully alive, from their most heroic strivings to their darkest flaws."

Review

"The Grief of Others is an engrossing and revealing look at a family sinking beneath the weight of a terrible secret. Leah Hager Cohen writes about difficult subjects with unfailing compassion and insight."

Review

"How does a family transcend its own pain? How do the secrets we keep shape our lives and the lives of those we love? In this gracefully written, elegantly structured novel, Leah Hager Cohen has created an indelible cast of characters whose story is at once wrenching and redemptive. This is a beautiful book."

Review

"The Grief of Others is a gorgeous, absorbing, intricately told tale of one family on the brink of collapse, as well as an intimate exploration of art and its place in our lives. Leah Hager Cohen expertly juggles six characters and all their needs, yearning, wounds, and secrets with tremendous skill and- even more important-deep and tender compassion. She is a masterlyl writer on every level."

Review

"The Grief of Others is delicate, haunting, and lovely, and very difficult to leave on the shelf."

Review

"A wise and compassionate novel that looks frankly at the ways members of a family can wound and betray each other, even when trying to do just the opposite. Readers will be tempted to vilify Ricky, but shes much too complex for that. Despite the lies, subterfuges, and silences these characters inflict on one another, there are no villains here, just a family trying to carry on."

Review

"At once compact and sweeping. Cohen never strikes a false note in relating the complicated emotions of her characters. She has created a world both universal and particular. She illuminates all the ways it is glorious to be burdened with full-fledged humanity in the vast universe."

Review

"Cohen creates gorgeous, uncommon descriptions that sound like grace notes on her pages. . . . There's pain in reading this book, but there's another thread running through it, too, gleaming with all the vibrancy of Cohen's prose: hope."—The Washington Post

"Leah Hager Cohen is one of our foremost chroniclers of the mundane complexities, nuanced tragedies and unexpected tendernesses of human connection. . . . For all its deep-seated sorrows, this is a hopeful book, a series of striking vignettes illuminating the humanity of these fully realized characters."—The New York Times Book Review

"In this subtle portrait of family life she shows the maddening arithmetic of marriage, the useless attempts to balance the equation. As Ricky and John's kids start to come unglued themselves, we see how the grief of others is contagious. . . . Ms. Cohen's painstaking excavation pays off, especially as Ricky and John decide to rebuild."—The New York Times

"Part of the novel's pathos lies in its ability to offer its characters a level of perceptive acuity and sympathetic attention they cannot offer one another ... The book's brilliance lies in moments like this one, these shards of devastating insight. Cohen's empathy is sure-footed and seemingly boundless; her writing gifts its characters with glints of ordinary human radiance. It is the possibility of this glinting that ultimately becomes Cohen's most powerful gift to us, her readers, as well."—San Francisco Chronicle

"The death of a newborn triggers the slow collapse of the Ryrie clan in Hager Cohen's richly layered new novel. . . . Affecting."—More

"With this incredibly moving commentary, Cohen has secured a place in the lineup of today's great writers."—Bookpage

"Cohen's (House Lights) stunning writing and ruthless, beautiful magnification of soul-crushing sorrow that threatens the Ryries' day-to- day family life mesmerizes, wounds, and possibly even heals her readers. Her courageous novel (she knows of what she writes) is to be savored."—Library Journal

"With gorgeous prose, Cohen skillfully takes us from past to present and back again as she explores the ramifications of family loss, grief and longing."—Kirkus

Review

“The Grief of Others is an engrossing and revealing look at a family sinking beneath the weight of a terrible secret. Leah Hager Cohen writes about difficult subjects with unfailing compassion and insight.”—Tom Perrotta, New York Times–bestselling author of Little Children

“Leah Hager Cohen's new novel is a perceptive, absorbing drama about the complex bonds of the modern American family and the treacherous paradox of the way we live now. Somehow, the more open and flexible we try to become as spouses and parents, the more emotional risks we take—and the more secrets we keep. I love how deeply Cohen delves into the hearts of all her characters, bringing them fully alive, from their most heroic strivings to their darkest flaws.”—Julia Glass, author of The Widower’s Tale

“How does a family transcend its own pain? How do the secrets we keep shape our lives and the lives of those we love? In this gracefully written, elegantly structured novel, Leah Hagar Cohen has created an indelible cast of characters whose story is at once wrenching and redemptive. This is a beautiful book.”—Dani Shapiro, author of Family History

“The Grief of Others is a gorgeous, absorbing, intricately told tale of one family on the brink of collapse, as well as an intimate exploration of art and its place in our lives. Leah Hager Cohen expertly juggles six characters and all their needs, yearning, wounds, and secrets with tremendous skill and—even more importantly—deep and tender compassion. She is a masterful writer on every level.”—Lily King, author of Father of the Rain

“The Grief of Others is delicate, haunting, and lovely, and very difficult to leave on the shelf.”—Susanna Daniel, author of Stiltsville

“A wise and compassionate novel that looks frankly at the ways members of a family can wound and betray each other, even when trying to do just the opposite. Leah Hager Cohen is particularly brave in her portrait of Ricky and John's marriage, faltering after a traumatic loss. Readers will be tempted to villify Ricky, but she's much too complex for that. Despite the lies, subterfuges and silences these characters inflict on each other, there are no villains here, just a family trying to carry on in a world that feels increasingly unreliable, and at times unhinged.”—Suzanne Berne, author of The Ghost at the Table

Review

“Leah Hager Cohen is one of our foremost chroniclers of the mundane complexities, nuanced tragedies and unexpected tendernesses of human connection. . . . For all its deep-seated sorrows, this is a hopeful book, a series of striking vignettes illuminating the humanity of these fully realized characters.”—The New York Times Book Review

“Cohen creates gorgeous, uncommon descriptions that sound like grace notes on her pages. . . . There’s pain in reading this book, but there’s another thread running through it, too, gleaming with all the vibrancy of Cohen’s prose: hope.”—The Washington Post

“In this subtle portrait of family life she shows the maddening arithmetic of marriage, the useless attempts to balance the equation. As Ricky and John’s kids start to come unglued themselves, we see how the grief of others is contagious. . . . Ms. Cohen’s painstaking excavation pays off, especially as Ricky and John decide to rebuild.”—The New York Times

“The death of a newborn triggers the slow collapse of the Ryrie clan in Hager Cohen’s richly layered new novel. . . . Affecting.”—More

“Part of the novel's pathos lies in its ability to offer its characters a level of perceptive acuity and sympathetic attention they cannot offer one another … The book's brilliance lies in moments like this one, these shards of devastating insight. Cohen's empathy is sure-footed and seemingly boundless; her writing gifts its characters with glints of ordinary human radiance. It is the possibility of this glinting that ultimately becomes Cohen's most powerful gift to us, her readers, as well.”—San Francisco Chronicle

“With this incredibly moving commentary, Cohen has secured a place in the lineup of today’s great writers.”—Bookpage

“Cohen’s stunning writing and ruthless, beautiful magnification of soul-crushing sorrow that threatens the Ryries’ day-to-day family life mesmerizes, wounds, and possibly even heals her readers. Her courageous novel (she knows of what she writes) is to be savored.”—Library Journal

“With gorgeous prose, Cohen skillfully takes us from past to present and back again as she explores the ramifications of family loss, grief and longing.”—Kirkus

“This is an ambitious novel offering insight into the rift between the public and the private, and illuminating the many ways in which we deal with tragedy.”—Publishers Weekly

“Cohen is one of our foremost chroniclers of the mundane complexities, nuanced tragedies, and unexpected tendernesses of human connection.” —The New York Times Book Review

Review

Praise for Leah Hager Cohens Nonfiction

“Remarkable and insightful . . . a parable of understanding . . . Ms. Cohen has given us reporting that feels like a love story—as intimate, tender, and troubling . . . as you are likely to find.” —The New York Times Book Review

“A breakthrough book.” —Chicago Sun-Times

“Eloquent.” —The New York Times Magazine

Review

Synopsis

The subtly powerful novel adapted into the 2015 feature film, The Grief of Others asks: is keeping a secret from a spouse always an act of infidelity? And what cost does such a secret exact on a family? The Ryries have suffered a loss: the death of a baby just fifty-seven hours after his birth. Without words to express their grief, the parents, John and Ricky, try to return to their previous lives. Struggling to regain a semblance of normalcy for themselves and for their two older children, they find themselves pretending not only that little has changed, but that their marriage, their family, have always been intact, that the loss of a child had no lasting impact. Yet in the aftermath, long-suppressed uncertainties about their relationship come roiling to the surface. A dreadful secret emerges with reverberations that reach far into their past and threaten their future.

The couple s children, ten-year-old Biscuit and thirteen-year-old Paul, responding to the unnamed tensions around them, begin to act out in exquisitely perhaps courageously idiosyncratic ways. But as the four family members scatter into private, isolating grief, an unexpected visitor arrives, and they all find themselves growing more alert to the sadness and burdens of others to the grief that is part of every human life but that also carries within it the power to draw us together. Moving, psychologically acute, and gorgeously written, The Grief of Others asks how we balance personal autonomy with the intimacy of relationships, how we balance private decisions with the obligations of belonging to a family, and how we take measure of our own sorrows in a world rife with suffering. This novel shows how one family, by finally allowing itself to experience the shared quality of grief, is able to rekindle tenderness and hope and are able to overcome their grief.

"

Synopsis

Is keeping a secret from a spouse always an act of infidelity? And what cost does such a secret exact on a family?

The Ryries have suffered a loss: the death of a baby just fifty-seven hours after his birth. Without words to express their grief, the parents, John and Ricky, try to return to their previous lives. Struggling to regain a semblance of normalcy for themselves and for their two older children, they find themselves pretending not only that little has changed, but that their marriage, their family, have always been intact. Yet in the aftermath of the baby's death, long-suppressed uncertainties about their relationship come roiling to the surface. A dreadful secret emerges with reverberations that reach far into their past and threaten their future.

The couple's children, ten-year-old Biscuit and thirteen-year-old Paul, responding to the unnamed tensions around them, begin to act out in exquisitely- perhaps courageously-idiosyncratic ways. But as the four family members scatter into private, isolating grief, an unexpected visitor arrives, and they all find themselves growing more alert to the sadness and burdens of others-to the grief that is part of every human life but that also carries within it the power to draw us together.

Moving, psychologically acute, and gorgeously written, The Grief of Others asks how we balance personal autonomy with the intimacy of relationships, how we balance private decisions with the obligations of belonging to a family, and how we take measure of our own sorrows in a world rife with suffering. This novel shows how one family, by finally allowing itself to experience the shared quality of grief, is able to rekindle tenderness and hope.

Synopsis

A gripping, morally complex novel that asks: How much do grown siblings owe one another?

At the edge of a woods, on the grounds of a defunct free school,” Ava and her brother, Fred, shared a dreamy and seemingly idyllic childhooda world defined largely by their imaginations and the presence of each other.

Decades later, then, when Ava learns that her brother is being held in a county jail for a shocking crime, she is frantic to piece together what actually happened. Fred has always been different, certainly impaired, never evaluated. Their parents frowned upon labels and diagnoses as much as they did formal instruction and societal constraints. Now, however, the parents are gone, the siblings grown apart, a boy is dead and Fred in jail, and Ava is forced to wonder: is it her job to save her brother? What is our obligation to those we loveand to those we find difficult to love? Convinced that she alone will be able to reach him and explain his innocence to the world, Ava endeavors to tell their enthralling story.

Leah Hager Cohen brings her trademark intelligence and grace to a rich, morally ambiguous story that suggests we may ultimately fathom one another best not with facts alone, but through our imaginations.

Synopsis

A short, concise book in favor of honoring doubt and admitting when the answer is: I dont know.

In a tight, enlightening narrative, Leah Hager Cohen explores why, so often, we attempt to hide our ignorance, and why, in so many different areas, we would be better off coming clean. Weaving entertaining, anecdotal reporting with eye-opening research, she considers both the ramifications of and alternatives to this ubiquitous habit in arenas as varied as education, finance, medicine, politics, warfare, trial courts, and climate change. But its more than just encouraging readers to confess their ignoranceCohen proposes that we have much to gain by embracing uncertainty. Three little words can in fact liberate and empower, and increase the possibilities for true communication. So much becomes possible when we honor doubt.

Synopsis

Lush, dark and unsettling, No Book but the World haunted me for days. With great skill, Leah Hager Cohen takes us through a twisty and resonant tale about the price of secrets, the burden of family, the remnants of childhood we never leave behind.” Megan Abbott, author of The End of Everything and Dare Me

At the edge of a woods, on the grounds of a defunct free school,” Ava and her brother, Fred, shared a dreamy and seemingly idyllic childhooda world defined largely by their imaginations and each others presence. Everyone is aware of Freds oddness or vague impairment, but his parents fierce disapproval of labels keeps him free of evaluation or intervention, and constantly at Avas side.

Decades later, then, when Ava learns that her brother is being held in a county jail for a shocking crime, she is frantic to piece together what actually happened. A boy is dead. But could Fred really have done what he is accused of? As she is drawn deeper into the details of the crime, Ava becomes obsessed with learning the truth, convinced that she and she alone will be able to reach her brother and explain himand his innocenceto the world.

Leah Hager Cohen brings her trademark intelligence to a psychologically gripping, richly ambiguous story that suggests we may ultimately understand one another best not with facts alone, but through our imaginations.

About the Author

Leah Hager Cohen is the author of five novels, most recently No Book but the World and The Grief of Others, which was long-listed for the Orange Prize, selected as a New York Times Notable Book, and named one of the best books of the year by the San Francisco Chronicle, Kirkus Reviews, and The Globe and Mail. She is also the author of five nonfiction titles, including Train Go Sorry and I Don't Know. She is a frequent contributor to The New York Times Book Review.